Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Visa, Inc. Increases Quarterly Dividend from .15 to .22 per share

Visa Inc. Declares Quarterly Dividend, Increases Dividend Rate by 47% and Announces Record Date for the 2012 Annual Meeting of Stockholders

SAN FRANCISCO
Oct. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) today announced that its board of directors had declared a 47% increase in the quarterly dividend aggregate amount on its class A common stock (determined in the case of class B and class C common stock on an as-converted basis) from $0.15 per share to $0.22 per share, payable on December 6, 2011, to all holders of record of the Company's class A, class B and class C common stock as of November 18, 2011. The quarterly dividend increase raises the annual dividend rate from $0.60 per share to $0.88 per share.
"Visa has a long-standing commitment to deliver value to its shareholders," said Joseph Saunders, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Visa. "By authorizing a significant dividend increase for the third consecutive year, the board of directors is delivering on that commitment and demonstrating their ongoing confidence in the strength of the business."
In addition, the Company announced that its 2012 Annual Meeting of Stockholders (the "Annual Meeting") will be held onJanuary 31, 2012. The Company's class A common stockholders at the close of business on December 5, 2011, the record date, will be entitled to vote at the Annual Meeting.
About Visa
Visa is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable digital currency. Underpinning digital currency is one of the world's most advanced processing networks—VisaNet—that is capable of handling more than 20,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and guaranteed payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa's innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, ahead of time with prepaid or later with credit products. For more information, visit www.corporate.visa.com.

Pay Anywhere Enhances its No Compromise Mobile Payment System for Apple and Android Users


Latest Version of the Apple/Android App to include Cash Transactions, Discounts, Store and Forward, and More

TROY, Mich.Oct. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- North American Bancard (NAB) is further enhancing the services of Pay Anywhere, its "no compromise" mobile payment system, with the latest version of the Pay Anywhere app for Apple iOS and Google Android.
Starting today, users can download Version 1.4.1 and 1.4 on Apple and Android respectively to immediately take advantage of the new features, which include Cash Transactions, Discounts, Store and Forward, and Multimerchant.
In addition to accepting credit card payments, the latest version of Pay Anywhere provides its users with the option to accept and record cash transactions. Merchants can enter the amount tendered and calculate the change due. Pay Anywhere also gives merchants the option to include discounts for their sales. With this feature, users can choose to add discounts for sales by percent or by a specific dollar amount.
The new Store and Forward feature allows Pay Anywhere users the ability to save and process sales. If Internet connectivity is unavailable, merchants can still accept swiped credit card transactions to save and process at a later time.
The new Multimerchant feature is ideal for merchants who may have multiple businesses or multiple employees using one mobile device. A Pay Anywhere user can login a business account and an individual account within the same app, and easily switch from one account to another.
"Since Pay Anywhere launched, we've received a lot of great feedback from our merchants by phone, email, social networks, and even in person," said Marc Gardner, NAB founder and president. "We wanted to show Pay Anywhere users that we listen – the new features and enhancements we are releasing are directly in response to merchant requests and the growing mobile payments market."
New and current Pay Anywhere users can download this feature-rich upgrade from either the App Store or the Android Market.
Since its inception, Pay Anywhere has outperformed its competition in the areas of both security and unmatched 24/7 customer service support, combined with affordability and a user-friendly application. In addition, Pay Anywhere is backed by NAB, an industry leader in credit card processing, which currently processes more than $1 billion in electronic transactions monthly for more than 125,000 merchants nationwide.
Pay Anywhere offers low transaction rates, a free merchant portal, no setup fees, no monthly service fees, and no monthly minimums are required. As the only "no compromise" mobile payment system, Pay Anywhere gets its merchants paid faster. Whereas other mobile payment systems may hold funds, Pay Anywhere customers will receive funding approximately two business days after the sale has been processed.
Getting started with a Pay Anywhere account is easy. Apple and Android users simply download the free app from the App Store or Android Market, respectively, and the appropriate free card reader device will be delivered directly to each customer. A mobile application for BlackBerry devices is coming soon. For more information or to get started with Pay Anywhere, visitwww.payanywhere.com.
About North American Bancard
Headquartered in Troy, Michigan, North American Bancard is a multi-faceted payment solutions provider dedicated to providing the latest technology as well as committing to the highest service levels. As a registered MSP/ISO since 1992, North American Bancard provides its clients with a full suite of products and services including Credit, Debit, EBT, Check Conversion and Guarantee, ATM, Gift and Loyalty Cards and Online Payment Gateway solutions. NAB processes over $12 billion in electronic transactions annually for over 125,000 merchants nationwide.  For more information, visit www.nabancard.com.
SOURCE North American Bancard

Consumers Union Calls on Bank of America & Other Major Banks to Drop Unfair Debit Card Fees


CU: It's Unfair to Charge Customers When Banks Collect Enough From Retailers to Cover Debit Card Costs
SAN FRANCISCOOct. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Consumers Union called on Bank of America and other banks to drop plans to charge consumers monthly debit card fees.  Bank of America recently announced it would charge its customers$5 each month starting in 2012 to make debit card purchases.  SunTrust has started rolling out its own $5 fee and Wells Fargo and Chase are testing debit card fees in select markets.    
"Americans are tired of being hit with new banking fees, especially since they've already paid to rescue firms like Bank of America, whose behavior helped spark the economic meltdown," said Norma Garcia, director of Consumers Union's financial services program.  "This debit card fee just adds insult to injury.  It's unfair for the banks to stick consumers with a monthly fee just to use their own money.  Bank of America and other banks can still collect enough money from retailers to cover debit card costs."  
Garcia added, "If Bank of America and the other banks refuse to drop the debit card fee, consumers should consider dropping them.  There are plenty of banks and credit unions that don't charge debit card fees that will be more than happy to accept new customers."
Consumers Union has published a set of tips for consumers who want to switch banks.  
Below is Consumers Union's letter to Bank of America urging it to drop its debit card fee.  Similar letters were sent to Chase, SunTrust, and Wells Fargo.
October 17, 2011
Brian T. Moynihan
Chief Executive Officer and President
Bank of America Corporation
401 N Tryon Street
Charlotte, NC 28202
Re:  Drop the $5 Debit Card Usage Fee
Dear Mr. Moynihan:
Recent news accounts have indicated that Bank of America will begin charging many of its checking account customers a $5monthly fee for debit card purchases starting in 2012.  This fee will be charged even when consumers use the card only once in that month.   Consumers Union, the public policy and advocacy division of Consumer Reports believes your decision to charge consumers a new monthly fee to use their own money for debit card transactions is both ill-timed and unfair.  Accordingly, on behalf of America's financial services consumers, we urge you to withdraw these plans immediately.
Consumers should not be required to pay a costly fee that appears to be arbitrary and designed to generate income to make up for Bank of America's bad business decisions rather than covering the costs of providing debit card services. Banks can still collect approximately 24 cents from retailers every time a customer makes a debit card purchase. That's much more than the median 8 cents the Federal Reserve estimates it costs a bank to process a debit purchase when consumers use a PIN number.
Bank of America plans to take dollars from consumers it says it lost when the Federal Reserve decided that banks could not charge retailers high and anticompetitive debit interchange fees to process debit card transactions.  Not only is Bank of America trying to make up for ill-gotten profits by heaping a new fee on consumers, it is doing so even though Bank of America actually saves money when consumers rely more on debit cards instead of paper checks, which are more costly to process.  
The public wants to know why it is that you plan to charge your customers $5 monthly, or $60 per year, more to access their own money, especially when taxpayers rescued Bank of America with a $45 billion loan just a few years ago.  It seems unjust and indefensible for Bank of America to now levy a costly new fee on consumers in a struggling economy, especially when the fee is not related to the cost of providing the service.  This fee is especially egregious, imposed as it is during a weak economy, when many consumers are struggling to keep afloat.  
Two weeks ago, Consumers Union urged Congress and Federal regulators to investigate Bank of America's controversial new fee.  We also gave consumers an opportunity to tell members of Congress what they think about the new fee.  Within 24 hours of sending out our e-mail action alert, nearly 40,000 consumers heeded our call and sent a message to their representative calling for an investigation.  We hope Congress and Federal regulators will get to the bottom of this unfair debit card fee.  But Bank of America need not wait until an investigation is underway to reverse its plans.  Consumers Union urges you to act now to do what is right and to do what is responsible—immediately withdraw your plans to charge checking account customers $5 to use their debit card for purchases.
Make no mistake about it.  American consumers are outraged by Bank of America's ploy to convince the public that this fee is necessary because of new regulations.  Now that banks must disclose all their fees up front, consumers can objectively decide for themselves whether you are telling the truth and we are hearing that consumers do not like what they see.  One consumer we heard from said it best:  "I am tired of the banks and other financial institutions trying to collect more than their fair share."  We couldn't agree more.  We urge you to reverse your decision to impose a $5 monthly fee on your debit card customers.  Consumers will thank you for it.
Please respond to our letter by Wednesday, November 2, 2011 to advise us of your position.
Very truly yours,
Norma P. Garcia
Senior Attorney
Manager, Financial Services Program
Consumers Union
SOURCE Consumers Union

The Future of Online and Mobile Payments


NEW YORKOct. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue:
Introduction
This report provides an overview of the global online and mobile payments industry, examining the industry in terms of market size, its segments, evolution of the industry, geographic segmentation, value chain, key drivers, trends, major players, and challenges. It also examines the future of the digital payments industry in terms of convergence of devices, technologies and value chains.
Features and benefits
* Use detailed analysis of the online and mobile payments industry to identify key business opportunities.
* Access comprehensive coverage of the different segments within the online and mobile payments industry.
* Profile the leading players in the online and mobile payments arena and understand the impact of their recent initiatives.
* Identify changes to value chains and business models, and their impact on the future development of the market.
Highlights
Business Insights anticipates that the alternate payments industry comprising online, mobile and contactless segments will post a CAGR of 17.6% over the period 2010–15, with revenues increasing from $740bn in 2010 to $2,700bn in 2015. The largest revenue generating segment of the advanced payments industry is the online payment segment.
The various industry drivers include increasing internet penetration rates, increasing fixed and mobile broadband subscriptions, ecommerce volumes, smartphone shipments, and smartphone penetration rates.
The over-riding consumer meta-theme for the industry is going to be convergence – whether of devices, technologies, or value chains. Due to this, NFC will emerge as the de facto industry standard for conducting mobile payment transactions within the next couple of years.
Your key questions answered
* What are the key drivers and resistors that will impact the growth of the online and mobile payments industry?
* What is the market size and growth potential of each sub-segment of the industry? Which segment has the highest growth potential?
* Who are the key players in the online and mobile payments industry? What initiatives are they launching, what are their strategies for future success?
* How will consumer and technological trends shape the future of the digital payments industry?

GALAXY Nexus Introduced by Samsung and Google


World’s First Smartphone to feature Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and a HD Super AMOLED display
HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a leading mobile device provider, and Google, today announced GALAXY Nexus™, the world’s first smartphone running Android™ 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest release of the Android platform. GALAXY Nexus features a 4.65” HD Super AMOLED display technology at 720p resolution and a 1.2GHz dual core processor.
“Samsung and Google have closely collaborated to push the mobile experience forward. We are pleased to deliver the best Android smartphone experience for customers with GALAXY Nexus. We will continue to move forward with Android to provide the compelling consumer experience in mobile world”
“Samsung and Google have closely collaborated to push the mobile experience forward. We are pleased to deliver the best Android smartphone experience for customers with GALAXY Nexus. We will continue to move forward with Android to provide the compelling consumer experience in mobile world,” said JK Shin, President and Head of Samsung’s Mobile Communications Business.
“Ice Cream Sandwich demonstrates the Android platform’s continued innovation with one release that works on phones and tablets and everything in between. Features like Android Beam and Face Unlock show the innovative work our team is doing, and GALAXY Nexus showcases the power behind Ice Cream Sandwich,” said Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile for Google.
The first smartphone to feature Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich
Ice Cream Sandwich brings an entirely new look and feel to Android. It has a redesigned user interface with improved multi-tasking, notifications, Wi-Fi hotspot, NFC support and a full web browsing experience. GALAXY Nexus features software navigation buttons, a first for Android smartphones. The lock screen, home screen, phone app, and everything in between has been rethought and redesigned to make Android simple, beautiful, and useful.
Ice Cream Sandwich also features a new People app, which lets you, browse friends, family, and coworkers, see their photos in high-resolution, and check their latest status updates from Google+ and other social networks. GALAXY Nexus features a redesigned camera which introduces panorama mode, 1080p video capture, zero-shutter lag, and effects like silly faces and background replacement.
GALAXY Nexus is also connected to the cloud, keeping your email, contacts, and all other data synced across your devices. You have access to more than 300,000 apps and games from Android Market™, or, in certain countries, you can buy and read books, or rent movies and stream them instantly from your phone. In the U.S., you can also upload your music to the cloud with Music Beta by Google and listen anywhere, even when offline.
Ice Cream Sandwich introduces innovations such as Face Unlock which uses facial recognition to unlock your phone. Using NFC technology, Android Beam allows you to quickly share web pages, apps, and YouTube™ videos with your friends by simply tapping your phones together. You can even use fun effects while shooting video or video chatting with Google Talk™.
Google Experience
GALAXY Nexus is designed to provide a “pure Google,” experience, and with it, you will be the first to receive software upgrades and new applications as they become available.
It also features a number of Google Mobile services, including: Android Market, Gmail™, Google Maps™ 5.0 with 3D maps and turn-by-turn navigation, Google Earth™, Movie Studio, YouTube™, syncing with Google Calendar™, and a redesigned Google+ app.
Best-in-class hardware meets the most advanced software
GALAXY Nexus is the first smartphone to feature a 4.65’’ display with a market-leading resolution of 720p (1280x720), ensuring you can enjoy GALAXY Nexus’ immersive entertainment capabilities and fast web browsing in superior clarity.
Succeeding the original Contour Display of Nexus S, GALAXY Nexus comes with a rounded shape that fits perfectly within your palm or to your face for phone calling. Hyper-skin backing on the battery cover improves the ergonomic feel of the device and makes the phone slip-resistant. At just 8.94mm thick, with a minimal 4.29mm bezel, GALAXY Nexus provides superb portability alongside an expansive screen.
GALAXY Nexus also features an ultra-fast 1.2GHz dual core processor, providing superior power and speed, ensuring you can take full advantage of GALAXY Nexus’ enhanced multitasking capabilities with ease, or enjoy the large, vivid display to its full capacity with high-definition gaming or video streaming. LTE or HSPA+ connectivity combined with a dual core processor delivers high-speed web browsing which ensures you always have the web at your fingertips, wherever you are.
GALAXY Nexus will be available in the U.S., Europe, and Asia beginning in November and gradually rolled out to other global markets.
For multimedia content and more detailed information, please visit www.samsungmobilepress.com/.

Gartner ID's the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2012


Analysts Examine Latest Industry Trends During Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, October 16-20, in Orlando
ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Gartner, Inc. today highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2012. The analysts presented their findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, being held here through October 20.
“Organizations should start exploratory projects to look at promised candidate technology and kick off a search for combinations of information sources, including social sites and unstructured data that may be mined for insights”
Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.
A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years. These technologies impact the organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives.
“These top 10 technologies will be strategic for most organizations, and IT leaders should use this list in their strategic planning process by reviewing the technologies and how they fit into their expected needs,” said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner fellow.
“Organizations should start exploratory projects to look at promised candidate technology and kick off a search for combinations of information sources, including social sites and unstructured data that may be mined for insights,” said Carl Claunch, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.
The top 10 strategic technologies for 2012 include:
Media Tablets and Beyond. Users can choose between various form factors when it comes to mobile computing. No single platform, form factor or technology will dominate and companies should expect to manage a diverse environment with two to four intelligent clients through 2015. IT leaders need a managed diversity program to address multiple form factors, as well as employees bringing their own smartphones and tablet devices into the workplace.
Enterprises will have to come up with two mobile strategies – one to address the business to employee (B2E) scenario and one to address the business to consumer (B2C) scenario. On the B2E front, IT must consider social goals, business goals, financial goals, and risk management goals. On the B2C front, which includes business to business (B2B) activities to support consumers, IT needs to address a number of additional issues such as surfacing and managing APIs to access enterprise information and systems, integration with third-party applications, integration with various partners for capabilities such as search and social networking, and delivery through app stores.
Mobile-Centric Applications and Interfaces. The user interface (IU) paradigm in place for more than 20 years is changing. UIs with windows, icons, menus, and pointers will be replaced by mobile-centric interfaces emphasizing touch, gesture, search, voice and video. Applications themselves are likely to shift to more focused and simple apps that can be assembled into more complex solutions. These changes will drive the need for new user interface design skills.
Building application user interfaces that span a variety of device types, potentially from many vendors, requires an understanding of fragmented building blocks and an adaptable programming structure that assembles them into optimized content for each device. Mobile consumer application platform tools and mobile enterprise platform tools are emerging to make it easier to develop in this cross-platform environment. HTML5 will also provide a long term model to address some of the cross-platform issues. By 2015, mobile Web technologies will have advanced sufficiently, so that half the applications that would be written as native apps in 2011 will instead be delivered as Web apps.
Contextual and Social User Experience. Context-aware computing uses information about an end-user or objects environment, activities, connections and preferences to improve the quality of interaction with that end-user or object. A contextually aware system anticipates the user’s needs and proactively serves up the most appropriate and customized content, product or service. Context can be used to link mobile, social, location, payment and commerce. It can help build skills in augmented reality, model-driven security and ensemble applications. Through 2013, context aware applications will appear in targeted areas such as location-based services, augmented reality on mobile devices, and mobile commerce.
On the social front, the interfaces for applications are taking on the characteristics of social networks. Social information is also becoming a key source of contextual information to enhance delivery of search results or the operation of applications.
Internet of Things. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that describes how the Internet will expand as sensors and intelligence are added to physical items such as consumer devices or physical assets and these objects are connected to the Internet. The vision and concept have existed for years, however, there has been an acceleration in the number and types of things that are being connected and in the technologies for identifying, sensing and communicating. These technologies are reaching critical mass and an economic tipping point over the next few years. Key elements of the IoT include:
  • Embedded sensors: Sensors that detect and communicate changes are being embedded, not just in mobile devices, but in an increasing number of places and objects.
  • Image Recognition: Image recognition technologies strive to identify objects, people, buildings, places logos, and anything else that has value to consumers and enterprises. Smartphones and tablets equipped with cameras have pushed this technology from mainly industrial applications to broad consumer and enterprise applications.
  • Near Field Communication (NFC) payment: NFC allows users to make payments by waving their mobile phone in front of a compatible reader. Once NFC is embedded in a critical mass of phones for payment, industries such as public transportation, airlines, retail and healthcare can explore other areas in which NFC technology can improve efficiency and customer service.
App Stores and Marketplaces. Application stores by Apple and Android provide marketplaces where hundreds of thousands of applications are available to mobile users. Gartner forecasts that by 2014, there will be more than 70 billion mobile application downloads from app stores every year. This will grow from a consumer-only phenomena to an enterprise focus. With enterprise app stores, the role of IT shifts from that of a centralized planner to a market manager providing governance and brokerage services to users and potentially an ecosystem to support entrepreneurs. Enterprises should use a managed diversity approach to focus on app store efforts and segment apps by risk and value.
Next-Generation Analytics. Analytics is growing along three key dimensions:
1. From traditional offline analytics to in-line embedded analytics. This has been the focus for many efforts in the past and will continue to be an important focus for analytics.
2. From analyzing historical data to explain what happened to analyzing historical and real-time data from multiple systems to simulate and predict the future.
3. Over the next three years, analytics will mature along a third dimension, from structured and simple data analyzed by individuals to analysis of complex information of many types (text, video, etc…) from many systems supporting a collaborative decision process that brings multiple people together to analyze, brainstorm and make decisions.
Analytics is also beginning to shift to the cloud and exploit cloud resources for high performance and grid computing.
In 2011 and 2012, analytics will increasingly focus on decisions and collaboration. The new step is to provide simulation, prediction, optimization and other analytics, not simply information, to empower even more decision flexibility at the time and place of every business process action.
Big Data. The size, complexity of formats and speed of delivery exceeds the capabilities of traditional data management technologies; it requires the use of new or exotic technologies simply to manage the volume alone. Many new technologies are emerging, with the potential to be disruptive (e.g., in-memory DBMS). Analytics has become a major driving application for data warehousing, with the use of MapReduce outside and inside the DBMS, and the use of self-service data marts. One major implication of big data is that in the future users will not be able to put all useful information into a single data warehouse. Logical data warehouses bringing together information from multiple sources as needed will replace the single data warehouse model.
In-Memory Computing. Gartner sees huge use of flash memory in consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems. In addition, it offers a new layer of the memory hierarchy in servers that has key advantages — space, heat, performance and ruggedness among them. Besides delivering a new storage tier, the availability of large amounts of memory is driving new application models. In-memory applications platforms include in-memory analytics, event processing platforms, in-memory application servers, in-memory data management and in-memory messaging.
Running existing applications in-memory or refactoring these applications to exploit in-memory approaches can result in improved transactional application performance and scalability, lower latency (less than one microsecond) application messaging, dramatically faster batch execution and faster response time in analytical applications. As cost and availability of memory intensive hardware platforms reach tipping points in 2012 and 2013, the in-memory approach will enter the mainstream.
Extreme Low-Energy Servers. The adoption of low-energy servers — the radical new systems being proposed, announced and marketed by mostly new entrants to the server business —will take the buyer on a trip backward in time. These systems are built on low-power processors typically used in mobile devices. The potential advantage is delivering 30 times or more processors in a particular server unit with lower power consumption vs. current server approaches. The new approach is well suited for certain non-compute intensive tasks such as map/reduce workloads or delivery of static objects to a website. However, most applications will require more processing power, and the low-energy server model potentially increases management costs, undercutting broader use of the approach.
Cloud Computing. Cloud is a disruptive force and has the potential for broad long-term impact in most industries. While the market remains in its early stages in 2011 and 2012, it will see the full range of large enterprise providers fully engaged in delivering a range of offerings to build cloud environments and deliver cloud services. Oracle, IBM and SAP all have major initiatives to deliver a broader range of cloud services over the next two years. As Microsoft continues to expand its cloud offering, and these traditional enterprise players expand offerings, users will see competition heat up and enterprise-level cloud services increase.
Enterprises are moving from trying to understand the cloud to making decisions on selected workloads to implement on cloud services and where they need to build out private clouds. Hybrid cloud computing which brings together external public cloud services and internal private cloud services, as well as the capabilities to secure, manage and govern the entire cloud spectrum will be a major focus for 2012. From a security perspective new certification programs including FedRAMP and CAMM will be ready for initial trial, setting the stage for more secure cloud computing. On the private cloud front, IT will be challenged to bring operations and development groups closer together using “DevOps” concepts in order to approach the speed and efficiencies of public cloud service providers.
About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world's most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives. This event delivers independent and objective content with the authority and weight of the world's leading IT research and advisory organization, and provides access to the latest solutions from key technology providers. Gartner's annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of attendees' annual planning efforts. IT executives rely on Gartner Symposium/ITxpo to gain insight into how their organizations can use IT to address business challenges and improve operational efficiency.
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About Gartner
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is a valuable partner to 60,000 clients in 11,500 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 4,500 associates, including 1,250 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 85 countries. For more information, visitwww.gartner.com.

Multiple Secure Elements Drive NFC Market above $1 Billion in 2016, Says ABI Research


LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Out of a total of 552 million NFC handsets shipped in 2016, 227 million will feature multiple secure elements. The increased inclusion of multiple secure elements will drive the mobile NFC market valuation above the $1 billion mark.
“The issues affecting the location of the secure element remain a hot topic and although progress has been made there remains uncertainty among ecosystem players.”
Although MNOs favor SWP SIM implementation, the market will develop with both SWP and embedded solutions shipping onto single devices. Continued development of ICs combining both controller and secure element will result in most handsets shipping with an embedded solution as standard practice. ABI Research forecasts that 78% of all NFC handsets will ship with some form of embedded secure solution in 2016.
Research analyst Phil Sealy says, “The issues affecting the location of the secure element remain a hot topic and although progress has been made there remains uncertainty among ecosystem players.” As the market matures and business models are realized and deployed, a variety of secure elements are being deployed into devices to meet different client demands. In the long run, this will allow service providers to enter the NFC market alongside MNOs, in turn making the offerings of NFC applications more competitive.
As well as the well-publicized NFC handset market, lesser known sectors, such as CE devices, tags, bridging solutions, and other markets will account for additional IC shipments totaling 534 million in 2016.
NFC will be an extremely prosperous market for IC vendors, generating estimated revenues totaling $1.3 billion in 2016 in the handset market alone. John Devlin, group director, security and ID, adds, “The ongoing uncertainly over secure elements and ownership will drive IC vendors to develop a variety of competitive solutions, including integrating the NFC RF in a combo connectivity IC or the baseband, embedding the secure element and controller together, as well as standalone solutions. This will enable a number of business models to develop and be served, meeting the anticipated long-term market requirement to support more than one secure element in a device.”
ABI Research’s new study, “NFC ICs and Devices,” (http://www.abiresearch.com/research/1003525) provides regional shipment data on NFC handsets, handset secure elements by form factor, consumer electronics, bridging solutions, stickers, and inlays.
ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of trends in global connectivity and other emerging technologies. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advises thousands of decision makers through 40+ research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.

USA Technologies Chairman and CEO Resigns after Scandal


USA Technologies Comments on Resignation of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer George Jensen

MALVERN, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--USA Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: USAT), a leader of wireless, cashless payment and M2M telemetry solutions for self-serve, small ticket retailing industries, today issued the following additional information regarding the resignation of Chairman and CEO George Jensen on October 14, 2011.
Late last month, the Audit Committee of the Company’s Board of Directors was contacted with information suggesting that Mr. Jensen had been posting information about the Company on an online investor forum. Kroll, Inc., the world’s leading risk consulting company, was engaged in order to assist with the investigation.
The investigation determined that Mr. Jensen had posted approximately 450 comments on the Yahoo message board primarily under the alias ‘investor.texas’ over a period of approximately two months. In reviewing the various posts, the Board determined that they were inappropriate. Mr. Jensen acknowledged making these postings. The Company acted swiftly, as it took approximately two weeks from the time of the Audit Committee’s notification to the time of Mr. Jensen’s suspension, which was followed by his resignation on October 14, 2011.
The investigation also determined that Mr. Jensen’s activities were the actions of a single individual, and found no evidence that any other Company executives or employees were either involved in the matter or aware of Mr. Jensen’s activities. As previously reported, the Company believes that Mr. Jensen’s actions do not impact or have an effect on the historical financial results or audited financial statements of the Company.
The Company has also voluntarily reported this information to the Securities and Exchange Commission and will fully cooperate with any investigation of this matter.
The Company believes that this incident is the unfortunate lapse of judgment of a single individual and that Mr. Jensen’s actions were in direct conflict with the culture and expectations the Company has regarding the behavior of all of its employees. The Company acted swiftly, and in the best interest of all of USA Technologies’ stakeholders – including its customers, shareholders and employees. If the Company takes any solace, it is in the propriety and effectiveness of its internal controls, which identified, investigated and acted upon the allegations swiftly and decisively.
Stephen P. Herbert, Interim Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, added, “While the reasons for Mr. Jensen’s resignation are disappointing, we believe that his actions have in no way influenced USA Technologies’ business operations. We continue to execute well on the growth opportunity in the small-ticket cashless payment and machine-to-machine telemetry sectors. Our employees continue to remain focused on serving customers, expanding our customer base, and enhancing shareholder value.”
The Board of Directors believes that USA Technologies is privileged to have a talented and experienced management team, and would like to thank Steve for accepting the interim Chief Executive Officer and Chairman positions, as well as thank all of the dedicated USA Technologies employees for their efforts to sustain the high levels of performance for which we are known.

U.S. Bancorp Reports Record Total Net Revenue of $4.8 Billion


U.S. Bancorp Reports Record Net Income for the Third Quarter of 2011

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) today reported net income of $1,273 million for the third quarter of 2011, or $.64 per diluted common share. Earnings for the third quarter of 2011 were driven by year-over-year growth in total net revenue and a reduction in the provision for credit losses. Highlights for the third quarter of 2011 included:
  • Strong new lending activity of $59.5 billion (12.9 percent increase on a linked quarter basis) during the third quarter including:
    • $18.4 billion of new commercial and commercial real estate commitments
    • $22.0 billion of commercial and commercial real estate commitment renewals
    • $1.9 billion of lines related to new credit card accounts
    • $17.2 billion of mortgage and other retail originations
  • Growth in average total loans of 5.0 percent (4.5 percent excluding acquisitions) over the third quarter of 2010
    • Growth in average total commercial loans of 11.9 percent over the third quarter of 2010 (11.7 percent excluding acquisitions)
    • Growth in average total loans of 1.7 percent on a linked quarter basis, including average total commercial loan growth of 4.6 percent
    • Growth in quarterly average commercial and commercial real estate commitments of 16.8 percent year-over-year and 5.8 percent over the prior quarter
  • Significant growth in average deposits of 17.9 percent (13.2 percent excluding acquisitions) over the third quarter of 2010, including:
    • Growth in average noninterest-bearing deposits of 47.5 percent (45.7 percent excluding acquisitions)
    • Growth in average total savings deposits of 13.5 percent (7.3 percent excluding acquisitions)
    • Growth in average total deposits of 2.8 percent on a linked quarter basis, including a 20.3 percent increase in noninterest-bearing deposits
  • Total net revenue growth of 4.5 percent over the third quarter of 2010 (2.2 percent growth over the prior quarter)
  • Net interest income growth of 5.9 percent over the third quarter of 2010 (3.1 percent growth over the prior quarter):
    • Average earning assets growth of 13.6 percent year-over-year, including a planned increase in the investment securities portfolio
    • Average earning assets growth of 3.1 percent on a linked quarter basis, including growth in the investment securities portfolio
    • Exceptionally strong growth in lower cost core deposit funding
    • Net interest margin of 3.65 percent for the third quarter of 2011, compared with 3.91 percent for the third quarter of 2010, and 3.67 percent for the second quarter of 2011 (The year-over-year decline was due to increases in lower yielding investment securities and cash balances at the Federal Reserve.)
  • Year-over-year growth in fee-based revenue, driven by:
    • Higher payments-related revenue (6.0 percent) including higher credit and debit card revenue (5.5 percent), corporate payment products revenue (6.3 percent) and merchant processing services revenue (6.3 percent)
    • Higher deposit service charges (14.4 percent)
    • Higher commercial products revenue (7.6 percent)
  • Managed expense levels leading to positive operating leverage on a year-over-year and linked quarter basis
    • Total noninterest expense increase of 3.8 percent year-over-year
    • Efficiency ratio decreased to 51.5 percent compared with 51.9 percent in the third quarter of 2010 and 51.6 percent in the prior quarter
  • Net charge-offs and nonperforming assets declined on a linked quarter basis. Provision for credit losses was $150 million less than net charge-offs.
    • Net charge-offs declined 10.4 percent from the second quarter of 2011
    • Nonperforming assets (excluding covered assets) decreased 6.9 percent from the second quarter of 2011 (6.7 percent including covered assets)
    • On a linked quarter basis, early and late stage loan delinquencies remained relatively stable despite seasonal pressures, and declined as a percentage of ending loan balances in a majority of loan categories
    • Allowance to nonperforming assets (excluding covered assets) was 166 percent at September 30, 2011, compared with 159 percent at June 30, 2011, and 153 percent at September 30, 2010
    • Allowance to period-end loans (excluding covered loans) was 2.66 percent at September 30, 2011, compared with 2.83 percent at June 30, 2011, and 3.10 percent at September 30, 2010
  • Strong capital generation continues to strengthen capital position; ratios at September 30, 2011 were:
    • Tier 1 common equity ratio of 8.5 percent
    • Tier 1 capital ratio of 10.8 percent
    • Total risk based capital ratio of 13.5 percent
    • Tier 1 common ratio of 8.2 percent under anticipated Basel III guidelines
    • Repurchased 13 million shares of common stock during the current quarter

First Data to Release Q3 2011 Financial Results


ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011, First Data Corporation will release its third quarter 2011 financial results. The release will be available at http://investor.firstdata.com.
The company will host a conference call and webcast on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011, at 10 a.m. ET to review the third quarter 2011 financial results. Ray Winborne, First Data chief financial officer, will lead the call.
To listen to the call via teleconference, dial 800-510-9836 (U.S.) or 617-614-3670 (outside the U.S.), pass code 10066071. The call will be webcast on the “Investor Relations” section of the First Data website at http://investor.firstdata.com and a slide presentation to accompany the call will also be available on the website.
A replay of the call will be available through Nov. 18, 2011, at 888-286-8010 (U.S.) or 617-801-6888 (outside the U.S.), pass code 52667146, and via webcast at http://investor.firstdata.com.

Heartland Conference Q3 Results Conference Call Announced


Heartland Payment Systems Announces Conference Call to Discuss Third Quarter 2011 Results

PRINCETON, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Heartland Payment Systems, Inc. (NYSE: HPY), one of the nation’s largest payments processors, today announced that its results for the third quarter 2011 will be released before the market opens on Thursday, October 27, 2011. A copy of the earnings release will be available on the investor relations portion of the Company’s website at:www.heartlandpaymentsystems.com.
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Robert Carr, President Robert Baldwin, and Chief Financial Officer Maria Rueda will host a conference call beginning at 8:30 AM Eastern Time, Thursday, October 27, 2011, to discuss third quarter results and conduct a question and answer session.
Heartland Payment Systems invites all interested parties to listen to its conference call broadcast through a webcast on the Company’s website. To access the call, please visit the Investor Relations portion of the Company’s website at:www.heartlandpaymentsystems.com. The webcast will be archived on the Company’s website within two hours of the live call and will remain available through January 27, 2012.
You may also participate by calling (888) 264-8926 and providing the operator with Pin Number 9424532.

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